OFF-BROADWAY THEATER REVIEWS

'You take a mackerel, grill it, drizzle a little lemon on it, serve it up with a huge glass of white zinfandel, and one doesn't feel quite like blowing one's brains out anymore, does one?' observes a husband when considering the prospect of another evening's dinner with his wife of nearly twenty-fiv...

The brevity of political satire's shelf life tends to rival that of a tray of supermarket eggs, but it seems one of the quips penned by Howard Lindsay and Russell Crouse for the book of their smash hit 1950 musical Call Me Madam is breathing in new life in the 21st Century....

With a proliferation of pimps, drug dealers and muggers saturating Times Square, business on Broadway was struggling during much of the 1970s, with theatres frequently left empty for long stretches and shows that didn't receive enthusiastic praise from the critics usually shutting down quickly....

When adapting famous novels into plays, the debate-and often the source of disappointment-is choosing what to cut. Elevator Repair Service has made the boldest, and yet at the same time the most neutral of choices in their adaptation: they have staged a production of F. Scott Fitzgerald's 'The Great...

'We can't talk about him, there's not enough time.' That's the quick explanation given to the audience as to why there's nobody portraying Michael Anthony, described 'as a bassist with a golden voice and a mullet that will last twenty years' in Amy Staats' fun and frisky comedy about some of the co...

'Trick or Treat,' an absorbing dark comedy, is now on stage at 59E59 Theaters for a limited engagement through February 24. Written by Jack Neary, the show features the finest direction by Carol Dunne and an excellent cast....

'Free speech is an acoustic art. It wasn't meant to go electric,' Colin Quinn explains in his very funny riff on contemporary American discourse, RED STATE BLUE STATE....

To those who knew her, Alice Trillin was highly regarded as an educator, author and film producer. But to millions more who never met her, she was the women that her husband, humorist Calvin Trillin, so obviously adored and admired with all of his heart....

'Before I walk in the room, I remember who I am,' explains rising hotshot negotiator Sarah in Helen Banner's new drama. 'I'm American. And I'm a woman, an attractive woman, divorced, successful, ambitious, sometimes on the news, going somewhere, from nowhere...'...

The exciting NYC premiere of 'Alone It Stands,' written and directed by John Breen, is now on stage at 59E59 Theaters through January 27 as part of the Origin's 1st Irish Festival....

59E59 Theaters is now presenting On Blueberry Hill, a two-hander that is mesmerizing its audiences. Written by Sebastian Barry and superbly directed by Jim Culleton, this affecting play stars Niall Buggy and David Ganly....

During the first year of his presidency, after violence broke out in Charlottesville, Virginia during a protest involving white supremacists, many of whom were displaying Nazi symbols and slogans, Donald Trump infamously noted that there were 'very fine people' on both sides of the conflict. One ...

One of the great opportunities afforded to playgoers at The Public Theater's annual Under The Radar Festival is the chance to see how theatre companies from other countries address the same issues being tackled by their American counterparts....

If the majority of Broadway ticket-buyers valued great acting as much as they valued celebrity, Marin Ireland would have been an above-the-title, name-in-lights star a long time ago.  Certainly New York's reviewing press, as a whole, has been doing its part to advise playgoers of the strength, inte...

At the commencement of MINOR CHARACTER, New Saloon's offering at the Public Theater's 2019 Under The Radar Festival, actor Madeline Wise stands downstage center, faces the audience and, with barely any body movement or facial expressions, begins rattling off the lines of various characters from the ...

Though there's nary a mention of snowfall or jingle bells in THE PIRATES OF PENZANCE, the abundance of joy and good clean humor, not to mention some terrific voices, in the New York Gilbert and Sullivan Players' frothily charming production of G&S's 1879 romantic romp makes it a grand choice for hol...

The humorous set-up for the new musical at The York, Christmas in Hell is a bit of an old chestnut, but bookwriter/composer/lyricist Gary Apple makes it sing nicely....

When one thinks of Ethiopian imports, coffee and extraordinary runners might grace the top of the list but circus artists aren't usually associated with the sovereign African nation. However, with Circus Abyssinia - an all-Ethiopian contemporary circus company, the brainchild and heart project of a ...

"Raise your hand if you consider yourself to be a trustworthy person." Those of a cynical nature might consider that a hapless request to aim at a New York audience, but sincerity is the key to mentalist Scott Silven's WONDERS AT DUSK, playing at the atmospherically dim Club Car at The McKittrick H...

Shortly after midnight, on Christmas Day of 1914, a German soldier whose name is now lost to history committed what might be the most subversive act in all of modern warfare.  He walked, unarmed, out of the front line trenches and into the middle of No Man's Land, faced the enemy British soldiers b...

In a city where hundreds of theatre productions are produced every year before audiences who encourage artists to experiment beyond the norm, it takes a lot for a play in New York to be regarded as unconventional....

The Net Will Appear is now onstage at 59E59 Theaters through December 30. Written by Erin Mallon and directed by Mark Cirnigliaro, you will want to see this charming intergenerational two hander....

The inherent problem with trying to craft a book musical around a score made of previously-existing hit songs is that the lyrics rarely match the character/situation specifics enough to keep the story moving. So film director/screenwriter Amy Heckerling tries finagling around that challenge in the n...

The lack of visible doors in our view of the home of the title character of Heather Raffo's drama of an immigrant Christian Iraqi family in America, Noura, appears more and more to be a symbolic gesture once it becomes apparent that her story takes its cue from Henrik Ibsen's A DOLL'S HOUSE....

It was over fifty years ago when designer Boris Aronson famously let a large mirror hang from the set of CABARET, forcing audience members to see their own reflections to bring home the point that what was happening in 1930s Germany could very well happen in America. And while that symbolic gesture ...